Three‐Dimensional Optical and Computational Reconstruction of Colloidal Electrokinetic Flows via Multiplane Imaging and Multiscale Modeling

ABSTRACT Sorting, filtering, and controlling colloidal particles is crucial in many fields, ranging from chemistry to biology and physics. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) enables selective manipulation of colloids by non‐uniform AC electric fields, yet the associated three‐dimensional nanoparticle dynamics and electrokinetic flows remain difficult to access experimentally. Here, we combine real‐time multiplane widefield microscopy (> 100 fps), 3D single‐particle tracking, and multiscale modeling to reconstruct the motion of 200 nm fluorescent polystyrene nanoparticles around a quadrupolar electrode under positive and negative DEP. This optical–computational approach provides volumetric trajectories and flow maps, revealing particle trapping, depletion, and three‐dimensional vortical motion. A model including DEP and AC electro‐osmotic flow quantitatively reproduces the positive DEP dynamics, demonstrating direct agreement between experiment and theory. Under negative DEP, the model captures particle depletion near the electrodes but not all observed flow structures, pointing to additional electrokinetic or electrothermal contributions. This framework provides a route to validate and refine AC electrokinetic models for complex colloidal and microfluidic systems.

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Small
Published
2026-08-24
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.75129
Primary Topic
Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies
Type
article
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article

Three‐Dimensional Optical and Computational Reconstruction of Colloidal Electrokinetic Flows via Multiplane Imaging and Multiscale Modeling

W. Van Roy, Manuel I. Marqués, Sudipta Seth, Rafael Delgado‐Buscalioni et al.
Small
Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies
article

Three‐Dimensional Optical and Computational Reconstruction of Colloidal Electrokinetic Flows via Multiplane Imaging and Multiscale Modeling

W. Van Roy, Manuel I. Marqués, Sudipta Seth, Rafael Delgado‐Buscalioni, Senne Fransen, Flip de Jong, K.S. Trivedi, Susana Rocha, M. Rosmeulen, Carmen Hervés, Santi Nonell, Boris Louis, Johan Hofkens, Harishankar Balakrishnan, Jim Jui‐Kai Chen, Roger Bresolí‐Obach, Luis M. Liz‐Marzán, Radin Tahvildari, Carlos Renero‐Lecuna, Andrey S. Klymchenko, Rémi Pelletier, Pablo Diez-Silva, Bing-Yang Shih, Raúl P. Peláez
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sorting, filtering, and controlling colloidal particles is crucial in many fields, ranging from chemistry to biology and physics. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) enables selective manipulation of colloids by non‐uniform AC electric fields, yet the associated three‐dimensional nanoparticle dynamics and electrokinetic flows remain difficult to access experimentally. Here, we combine real‐time multiplane widefield microscopy (> 100 fps), 3D single‐particle tracking, and multiscale modeling to reconstruct the motion of 200 nm fluorescent polystyrene nanoparticles around a quadrupolar electrode under positive and negative DEP. This optical–computational approach provides volumetric trajectories and flow maps, revealing particle trapping, depletion, and three‐dimensional vortical motion. A model including DEP and AC electro‐osmotic flow quantitatively reproduces the positive DEP dynamics, demonstrating direct agreement between experiment and theory. Under negative DEP, the model captures particle depletion near the electrodes but not all observed flow structures, pointing to additional electrokinetic or electrothermal contributions. This framework provides a route to validate and refine AC electrokinetic models for complex colloidal and microfluidic systems.

Small
Ikerbasque (ES), CIC biomaGUNE (ES), Laboratoire de Biophotonique et Pharmacologie (FR), IMEC (BE), VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology (BE), Institut Químic de Sarrià (ES), Universidade de Vigo (ES), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES), Université de Strasbourg (FR), KU Leuven (BE)
Openalex Percentile: Top 19%
Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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